1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus, a method and a system and, more particularly, to an information exchange apparatus that allows a user to share and exchange information with other users, an information exchange method applied to the information exchange apparatus and a managing system applied to the information exchange apparatus.
2. Description of Related Art
Today, people are living in a world that is full of new knowledge and information. People also spread new knowledge and information instead of retrieving it because of the popularity of the Internet. For example, online dating, e-commerce, web logs (blogs) or the like are popular information exchange services via the Internet. The information exchange services create virtual environments for people to exchange information or communicate with each other. However, people cannot really know each other in the virtual environments, because the virtual environments are not the real world. Shortcomings of information exchange services via the Internet such as online dating and e-commerce are described as follows.
Online dating is implemented on a website that has members and allows the members to contact and share personal information with each other over the Internet for developing friendships or romantic relationships by using computers or cell phones. However, because members do not meet each other face to face during online dating, some members may misrepresent themselves or provide fake information. This is why Internet fraud happens frequently. There is an inherent lack of trust between members.
E-commerce is also implemented on a website that provides products or services and allows users to buy or sell over the Internet. However, because the consumers cannot check interested products before purchase, it is not easy for consumers to pick out what they want. The consumers are also at a high risk of fraud, because E-commerce often requires the consumers to pay first. On the other hand, because E-commerce is a one-way service, the proprietor who provides products to consumers does not understand what the consumers are interested in. The proprietor of E-commerce cannot provide new products according to what the consumers are interested in.
To overcome the shortcomings, the present invention provides an information exchange apparatus, method and managing system applied thereto to mitigate or obviate the aforementioned problems.